After Hurricane Ike passed, Houston-area residents learned they could — at least for a time — do without many everyday mainstays: air conditioning, television, electric lights, refrigeration and home laundry. What no one can live without, even for a few days, is clean, drinkable water.

And yet, as of last week, there were some 250,000 Houston-area residents making do without a home source of running water, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The commission, which regulates more than 2,500 public water systems in the 10-county region that felt the brunt of Hurricane Ike, notes 600,000 with an unconfirmed water status also might have no running water.

The result is that legions of Houston-area residents have to find some work-around, as they are not able to turn a tap and access water for cooking, bathing, flushing and cleaning.

For the first several days, people who prepared well for the storm relied on bottled drinking water for hydration and cooking, and on filled bathtubs and containers for everything else. Those supplies have run dry for the most by now, two full weeks post-Ike.

Yet, this lack of water has received far less attention than power outages that have left so many in the region perspiring in darkness. In fact, a lack of electricity to pumping stations is the reason for much of the current suffering without water.

Turning the tap back on for some will require more than just fixing the electrical grid. Infrastructure damage in some locations will leave some high and dry long after the lights flicker on.

Those of Houston's 400,000 utility customers who lost their water after the hurricane are mainly back up and running, according to city officials. But other, smaller water systems continue to have problems.

Texas regulators require public water systems to have backup systems in place so that water keeps flowing even when power is lost. There are places where that has not occurred. Many private water districts also failed to employ generators to maintain running water in the communities they serve. Or they did not maintain adequate stores in elevated tanks, which allow gravity-enabled flow.

This is unacceptable in terms of how long the water has been shut off at this point and in terms of the threat to public health and safety. Yet TCEQ officials are not ordering water providers to use generators to quickly get the water running. Instead they are providing technical advice and site visits. This is a stunningly callous response when what is called for is urgent action.

"This event was huge, and in this kind of situation, it takes time," Elston Johnson, manager of TCEQ's public drinking water section, told the Chronicle.

Yes, water repairs take time. But they shouldn't take this long. Infants, the elderly, disabled and sick have a critical need for clean water on a daily basis. They and the people who care for them often are the least able to procure other water sources. For these most vulnerable — some of whom have been without air conditioning during this late Texas summer heat — life without water can be deadly.

Danger lurks, too, for the healthy once they begin relying on water standing in buckets filled from far-off taps. How long before cross-contamination and nonfunctioning sewer systems lead to outbreaks of serious water-borne illnesses?

And what will happen when fires spread because of empty fire hoses?

People who rely on well water, which may have been contaminated during the storm or which is inaccessible because of electric pump outages, also need help securing potable water.

Except in those hardest-hit communities, where Hurricane Ike's devastating blow completely knocked out power, water and sewer system infrastructure, water regulators and water company officials must snap to the utter seriousness of this dangerous situation.